The Salt Lake Valley cottage is tried and true, steady and strong. Forged in the early days of Big Ocean by Dana Robb, this cottage shines like a beacon. As other cottages cycle through high and low tides, it retains a constant current of good works and fellowship. You will note that they involve their families in these faithful endeavors.
Cathy Mauluulu, the current president of the cottage, tells the story so well that we’re just going to let you in on a recent conversation we shared with her (in cyberspace).
How did the cottage get its start and how have you been involved?
Way back at the beginning of Big Ocean Women, Carolina Allen did a presentation at my friend’s house and introduced the concept and tenets of Big Ocean Women. The message and tenets really resonated with me, and I was interested. My friend, Dana, decided to start our Salt Lake Valley Cottage, and I attended from the start.
After the first year that Big Ocean Women attended the United Nations, I read the report that Carolina wrote for our members. The issues discussed really pierced my heart to its core. They were issues that my late mother was very involved in and concerned about that affect faith, family, and motherhood. At that moment, it felt as though my mother was there standing next to me, passing on to me the torch she carried, to help in carrying on the work she had been involved in for so many years.
Shortly after our cottage started, I joined the Cottage Committee and helped put together our cottage leader training. Currently I serve as the Cottage President, member of the Global Strategy Committee and I am the Big Ocean Women liaison to a large local coalition of pro-family organizations in my state.
How does your cottage spread the word of maternal feminism and standing for faith, family, and motherhood?
Our cottage has learned about the legislative process. We learned how to look up and track bills that come up in the legislative session. Many members of our cottage have developed relationships with their legislators so that when issues come up, they are empowered to advocate for policies that support faith, family, and motherhood.
What does your cottage do best?
We look for ways we can serve in our local communities. We have collected household items for new refugee families to help them get established in their new homes. We have collected and put together backpacks filled with all the needed school supplies for refugee children and other children in our community who are in need. Our cottage has also provided other local charities with filled Christmas stockings for children at Christmas time.
One of my favorite projects we have done was putting together birthing kits for women in low resource areas. We worked with an organization of midwives called Errand of Angels. It was a big project. We were able to fill and supply many kits. After we put them all together, the midwives did a training class for our women where they taught us how to assist and support a mother through labor and delivery in a low resource situation. It was an amazing class! Everyone walked away feeling empowered that if we were ever faced with this type of situation, we felt we could confidently handle it. We had about 30 of our women certified. Little did we know that about a week later the birthing kits we filled and donated would be used in Texas and Florida when they were hit with large hurricanes.
Has there been a particular Big Ocean Tenet that has moved you and your cottage to action?
The tenet that has been the most motivational to our cottage is the Model of Powerful Impact. You can take any of our other tenets and as an individual work to develop that principle in your own life and the natural consequence is that the effects will pour out to those in your own home, your family. It then can inspire change within each one of them. They then will inspire those within their sphere of influence which has the exponential power to influence the world for good!
We have no doubt that the Salt Lake Valley cottage will continue to be a beacon and a reliable, continuing force for good in its members’ homes and families, their communities, and as a Model of Powerful Impact for other cottages throughout the world.
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